Okay, we're on philosophy lecture number 15. We're still dealing with chapter 19, which deals with God's existence from Geisler and Feinberg. Does God exist? and we were talking about arguments for God's existence and I'm going to leave a little bit we talked about Anselm and the ontological argument for God's existence and I'm going to now move on to some of the other types of arguments for God's existence but I'm going to be kind of shooting off the hip here from my own notes from an apologetics course that I taught And then we'll get back to our chapter very shortly. Remember the other types of argument for God's existence that we're going to be covering are the moral argument for God's existence, which says that the universal moral law implies a universal moral law giver. In fact, did we cover, I think we covered all of these except for the cosmological, didn't we? I've got notes going on all four of them. Okay. The teleological argument, the argument from design, that the universe is one of design, therefore it needs an intelligent designer. We already talked about William Paley. But the one I want to focus on is the cosmological argument. the argument that the universe, or some aspect in the universe, needs a cause. Now, just in case, I believe I did, but just in case, I'll go over C.S. Lewis' moral argument. He argues that all admit to an objective moral standard, especially when we're wrong, and that nature is non-moral. You don't get your morality from a rock or from a tree. Therefore, the objective moral standard must come from a supernatural cause. Something beyond nature. The same thing can be said for reason. You know, anybody who denies the existence of intelligence or reason must use intelligence or reason just to make a denial. Therefore, intelligence exists. Nature is non-intelligent. Therefore, the cause of intelligence must be a supernatural cause. It must be a supernatural intelligence or a supernatural mind. that intelligence came from. And with the moral law, moral law giver is what is needed. What I want to do now is look at the three different types of cosmological arguments for God's existence. We're going to look at the argument from existential causality. Existential causality. which is from Aquinas. We'll look at the argument based on the principle, the cosmological argument based on the principle of sufficient reason by Leibniz. And then we'll look at the argument, the Kalam cosmological argument which St. Bonaventure used. Bonaventure lived around the same time as Aquinas in the 13th century. So these three types are all three types of the same kind of argument, the cosmological argument for God's existence. Now, let me say this about Aquinas who lived 1224-1274 AD the principle of existential causality you are not looking for a cause for the beginning of the universe even today many philosophers misunderstand Aquinas' argumentation because they thought that Aquinas was looking for the cause of the beginning of the existence of the universe, he was not existential causality means you're looking for the cause of the current continuing existence of limited beings in other words Aquinas is looking for the sustaining cause of the universe he's looking for the cause of it remaining in existence rather than the beginning of its existence and here I'll just mention some of the I'll give a four-step approach, just the way I would term his argument. Aquinas would argue like this, that contingent beings exist, and all that basically means, I'll put it in layman's terms, beings exist which are dependent on other beings for their continuing existence. That's the number one premise for the cosmological argument from existential causality. Beings exist which are dependent on other beings for their continuing existence. It's not, he's not arguing for like my parents as the cause of me because they gave, they caused my beginning. Because if they die you still exist. Yeah, if they die I still exist. He's talking about like myself as the cause of my reflection in a mirror. so if you take away the cause, if I move away from the mirror, the effect is gone by reflection, it's not in that mirror, okay? So his first premise is beings exist which are dependent on other beings for their continuing existence. Premise number two, dependent beings cannot be the ultimate cause of the continuing existence of other dependent beings. Reason being is, you say, well, Co-branded exists because there's enough food, there's enough animals around for him to eat meat, so that's one of the causes for his continuing existence. But then you find out that those animals also need other animals for their continuing existence, or at least plant life, something to eat. So that cow cannot be the ultimate cause of my existence. Dependent beings cannot be the ultimate cause of the continuing existence of other dependent beings. Point number three, adding dependent beings never gives us an independent being. You can add all the dependent beings together, i.e. the entire universe, and you still don't come up with an independent being. Totally independent being that exists, that does not depend on anything else for its continued existence. Now, Aquinas seems to be arguing here that if the entire car has the possibility of breaking down, given enough time, the car will break down. Now, what Aquinas is not arguing is that, he's not arguing that every possibility given enough time will be actualized. In other words, he's not arguing that If it's possible for every part of the car to break down, then the day will come when every part will break down. Because you don't know that, because they don't have to break down at the same exact time. Otherwise, if one thing broke down, the whole car would shut down, and the other thing wouldn't get a chance to break down. What he's saying though is, if it's possible for that whole car to break down, even though maybe not all the parts individually broke down, then that car someday will break down. And when you compare that to the universe, Phil Fernandes might be doing fine, but if all the oxygen in the Earth's universe leaves or is destroyed, then that's not only going to bring an end to that but if I'm dependent on that for my existence then that's the end of me and eventually you'll reach a time where enough of these scenarios occur for the universe which is to cease to exist. So Aquinas is arguing that adding dependent beings never gives us an independent being. In other words, the whole entire universe is made up of dependent beings and what you have is one, you can view the whole entire universe as one big dependent being that is dependent on something else's existence. And so he concludes, point four, the ultimate cause for the continuing existence of all dependent beings, i.e. the universe, must be an independent being. The ultimate cause for the continuing existence of all dependent beings, i.e. the universe, must be a totally independent being. Okay? Eventually, existence has got to be grounded somewhere. I don't know if you guys ever hooked up stereos in your car. I used to hook up the stereos in a car and you had to ground one of the wires on metal. Well, you could say, well, I don't want to ground it on metal, so I'm going to splice this wire into another wire. Then the radio won't work. Yeah, but I'll splice it into another wire. But then the radio won't work. Yeah, but I'll splice it into another one. But then the radio won't work. But I'll splice it into another one. You go on and on. As long as that thing is not grounded on metal, the stereo is not going to work. Once you ground one of those wires on metal, if they're all connected properly, then it's going to work. It's the same with us. You can keep an independent beams all you want. But if you don't have an independent being, if dependent, contingent existence, limited existence is, if there is no totally independent, unlimited, infinite existence, then there would be no ground. for finite, limited, contingent, dependent existence. You see what I'm saying? There'd be no dependent existence, there'd be no ground for dependent existence to continue in existence if there was no totally independent being to ground us in existence. Now a modern proponent of the holistic cosmological argument from the principle of existential causality is Dr. Norman Geisler. you get a chance to pick up his book on Christian apologetics or his book on philosophy of religion which will be the next philosophy course that we teach and we're done with philosophy and he's got some dynamite arguments there next I'd like to mention the cosmological argument from the principle of sufficient reason that was used by Leibniz who lived from 1646 to 1760 now existential causality was looking for the cause of the continuing existence for something 1646 to 1760 for Leibniz but Leibniz he's looking for the sufficient reason yes for the continuing existence of things but he's not looking so much for the cause as he is for the explanation okay so there's a slight difference there The cause is something actual, God. The explanation would be, well God as the creator is the explanation. So we're going to creation now or continuity? We're going to sufficient reason for... Yeah, he's got a first premise is that there is a sufficient reason for everything that exists. Now here's where I disagree with Guyver. He said Leibniz was off the wall on this, because Leibniz is saying that if everything needs a reason for its existence, that even God needs a reason for its existence. I would agree. But saying God has a reason for its existence is not saying the same thing as God has a cause for its existence. God exists uncaused. he has no cause for his existence, he's an eternal being, he has no cause. But there's a reason for God's existence and that reason is that he is uncaused. You see what I'm getting at? In other words a reason is the explanation and there is an explanation for why God exists. That explanation though is that he is by nature eternal, he is by nature uncaused. So reason and cause are not being used synonymously and I don't know why Geisler argues in one page in Philosophy of Religion that it is used synonymously and then on another page he argues that it's not used synonymously so an explanation we try to find an explanation in our mind that would explain something that's occurring We're looking for the reason why it occurred. It's different from the cause. It's different from the cause, yeah. God doesn't have a cause for existence, but there is a reason for his existence. And that's the theory about us. And the reason is, the explanation why God exists is that he is an uncaused being who always exists. He is existence. His essence is existence, but he has a reason for existence. Yeah, yeah. And just like when Aquinas called God a self-existent being. He's saying the same thing as Rybins was saying when he would call God a self-explained being. But neither one of them is calling God a self-caused being. As long as when you say God is a self-existent being, you mean that God exists by his own power and his existence depends on no other being, he just is an uncaused eternal being, there's no contradiction there. If you say that God is self-explained in that, you don't explain God's existence by appealing to other beings, you explain God's existence by just appealing to his being and you see that it is his being to exist. God's essence is his existence. But to say God was a self-caused being, then that would be contradiction. You'd be saying that God had to pre-exist his own existence in order to bring about his own existence. I have a question about language. Do you think there's a better language than English that is more technical or more able to explain? Greek. Greek is much more technical. Hebrew is much more poetic. Latin is even more technical. What would you recommend to study for learning more in-depth concepts of God? I would say for the Christian the best that they should do would be studying Greek, Hebrew and Latin because then what you would get you would get the fine-tuned language of Greek and if it was good enough for God to use plain Greek then it would be good enough for us but you would also be getting the Hebrew to play like we say in Proverbs 30 verse 5 every word of God is flawless That's one translation. Another translation says every word of God is tested. Another one says every word of God is pure. Which one's right? And the answer is they're all right. But it would take a paragraph to translate that one word in all its fullness. What it means is every word of God has been tested. and has been proven to be totally pure and therefore flawless. But, you know, with one word, if we try to translate one rich Hebrew word in English and do it justice, you know, our Bibles would be, you know, each sentence would be 20 pages long and it's the same to the Greek, but not from a poetic angle. The Hebrew plays a picture. but the Greek is real fine-tuned and real intellectual type knowledge even though it was only Koine Greek, only a classical Greek but just the difference I mean really the more we learn about Greek from our Greek courses the more we're going to see that there's a whole lot of things that context is going to determine but at the same time there's a lot less that is left There's a lot less in the Greek left to try to interpretation. Very little ambiguity. Yeah, there's a lot of ambiguity in the English and there's very little in the Greek. In the Greek I just talk right out and tell it to you. And so areas where we just slot words together and it doesn't make a difference what you do here and the verbs don't change here in the Greek. All those changes are being made so it's real specific. but Latin as well because you've got a lot of great theologians and philosophers who wrote Latin like Aquinas and Augustine before them. Anyway, Leibniz's cosmological argument for sufficient reason goes as follows. One, there is a sufficient reason for everything that exists. Two, the existence of some beings is explained by something other than itself. such as my own existence. The existence of some beings is explained by something other than itself. For instance, the existence of myself is explained by the existence of my parents, enough air for me to breathe, food and water to keep me alive. So my existence is explained by something other than itself. Now point three, the collection of all these beings, all beings whose existence is explained by something other than itself, the collection of all these beings still needs an explanation. Now an infinite, point four, an infinite regress of reasons going on and on infinitely, an infinite regress of sufficient reasons is impossible because then there would really be no ultimate explanation at all. You would just you know, have all these things that need a reason for their existence, but no reason why they all exist. And then the conclusion, point five, therefore there must exist a being, therefore there must exist a being who contains within itself, therefore there must exist a being who contains within itself the reason for its own existence. Therefore there must exist a being who contains within itself the reason for its own existence. This being would then explain the existence of itself and all other beings. And of course that being is God. Once you arrive at God, you see, the reason for God's existence is in himself, not in any other beings, in himself, that he is an uncaused being who has no beginning and no end, he is an eternal being. And that his essence is to exist. And then this being would be the explanation of his own existence and the existence of all of them. Again, this is not saying that God is self-caused, but it is saying that God is uncaused. A modern proponent of this would be Frederick Copleston, the great Jesuit priest who was a great historian. His nine-volume set, The History of Philosophy, is a standard work in its field and a great work there. The third type of cosmological argument I'd like to discuss is the Kalam cosmological argument. by the way when we get into these arguments in our philosophy of religion course I'm probably not going to be dealing with much more information than I'm going to be putting out but what we're going to be doing is maybe hopefully we get the arguments from God in existence in about 15 minutes of lecture and then 30 minutes of discussion and really try to get a deeper understanding of these arguments Monaventure lived from 1221 to 1274 so we see he was only born three years after Aquinas and died the same year in fact they argued back and forth over this particular argument but Monaventure used the Kalam cosmological argument it was actually an argument that was made famous by Arabian philosophers and The premise here is whatever had a beginning needs a cause. Whatever had a beginning needs a cause. So you're arguing for the cause of the beginning of something. So this argument is real, real easy. I'll give you it in five points. One, whatever had a beginning needs a cause. Two, the universe had a beginning. Three, therefore the universe needs a cause. Four, an infinite regress is impossible. In other words, the cause of the universe, maybe that had a cause, but then you couldn't, and then maybe that had a cause, but you couldn't go on and on infinitely, and so ultimately, point five, the conclusion, the ultimate cause of the universe must therefore be eternal. The ultimate cause of the universe must therefore be eternal. A moderate proponent of this argument would be William Lane Craig, also J.P. Moreland as well. I did find a, what I think is a fallacy in their book, in their books. Maybe we'll get a chance to talk about that a little bit. But I met Craig, never did meet Moreland, but Craig is a really, William Lane Craig is a really nice guy, a really good guy. Let's take a look at this argument. Okay, whatever had a beginning needs a cause. Does that sound convincing? It sounds very convincing to me because if something began to exist it couldn't have caused its own existence because then it would have to free its own existence to bring itself into existence and that's absurd. But it also couldn't just pop into existence out of nothing on its own. Because from nothing, nothing comes. Nothing is nothing. Therefore, nothing can do nothing. Therefore, nothing can cause nothing. That grouping right there, is that a quote from somebody? No, as far as I know, from nothing, nothing comes. That's a quote from Walter Martin used it, Geithner used it. It's probably a book that goes way back in church history. What I did was, I liked From Nothing, Nothing Comes, but I thought there were hidden premises there. and so that's when I started inserting things like nothing, nothing is nothing we know that by the law of identity something must be itself nothing is nothing and therefore if it is nothing it can do nothing and if it can do nothing then obviously it can cause nothing and so all I do is I just insert some pretty obvious premises just in case the people I'm talking to, whether it's you guys or the people who are listed on the cassette just in case they don't follow the line of reasoning there and make it a little simpler. So I think we're all pretty much in agreement whatever had a beginning needs a cause. That's why the atheistic evolutionists even today Carl Sagan still tries to argue even though it's against all scientific evidence tries to argue for the beginning I tried to argue that the universe had no beginning, it's eternal, with the oscillating model, that there was an infinite number of big bangs before it, which could scientifically be shown to be false. But the fact is, they wanted an eternal universe, because if the universe had a beginning, then how did it get here? And so whatever had a beginning means the causes were pretty strong. Even David Yield, David Hume said we couldn't really know. All we know is that when A happens, B usually follows. So there's no way that we can know for sure that A causes B. Our mind assumes that it does. There's no way to prove that. Well, in a personal letter to a friend, David Hume wrote that he was in no way, he was never so stupid as to deny the law of causality. All he was saying was he couldn't prove it. with logical necessity. OK. In other words, you couldn't prove something with logical necessity means that the opposite of it is it is impossible. So it must be true. So that's all you're saying. But for me, the opposite is is contradictory. The locality is everything has a cause. then the opposite would be that nothing ever caused. Yeah, well, the... I think mainly what he's getting at is like particular cause and effect relationships that were taught in the realm of science. Although Jung would be very skeptical in a lot of other areas, but even there Jung would be more in the ballpark of the guy who kind of says, hey, this could all be a dream type of thing. And... but Jung, well he was an empiricist and as an empiricist he's going to look to the five senses for his data more than to reason but what he was basically saying, Jung was basically saying and even philosophers today that quote from Jung they need to recognize there were two David Jungs David Jung recognized the one who says what do we know with absolute certainty? and his answer is pretty much nothing but then the real David Hume that lived his life recognized that he accepted certain things with a high degree of probability And so we shouldn't assume that David Hume was as quite as dogmatic in some areas as he seemed to be. Although he was contradictory in a lot of his thoughts that came through his denial of miracles. But that would get us too far off course. Anyway, whenever he had a beginning he could cause... Then Bonaventure would argue the universe had a beginning. Now some of the... By the way, supposing... Suppose that somebody denied the existence of the universe. There's some good ways to argue towards that. Because all you need for a universe is a unity and diversity. It's just to show that a couple of beings exist. A couple of limited beings exist. But even if you deny that, if you're going to be completely skeptic around it and say that only I exist and the rest of this is all an illusion I've created for myself. Even if you do that, you yourself had a beginning at some point. You can only recollect back to a certain point beyond which you didn't exist, so therefore you have to have a beginning, therefore you have to have had a cause. to get around that and say maybe I just had amnesia or this or that but then I think that you could be making a case someone could make a case for a woman that shows you do have some limitations and if you do have some limitations it seems like your existence is dependent you could lose your memory, maybe you could lose your existence here so you appear to be more of a possible being than a pure actual being but by possible being there I mean a being that is actual but also has the potential to not exist rather than God as pure act who has no potential for non-existence whatsoever but Geisler would argue a lot like this that some dependent beings now exist this is a premise I use in my own argument but I take this first premise from Geisler I must exist in order to deny my existence. This is what Geisler calls actual undeniability. My existence you can't prove it with logical necessity because the opposite of it is logically possible. However, I have to actually exist to make the denial of my existence. Because nothing is nothing, nothing therefore can do nothing, nothing can therefore deny nothing. So just to make the denial I have to exist to make a denial of my existence. So I must exist in order to deny my existence, so I know that I exist. Then I would argue, I would go a little further than the guy could go there, and when I communicate with others, I affirm their existence. So when I'm telling others, you don't exist, only I exist, you know, just stop talking to me. If I don't exist, stop acting like I exist. Stop communicating. You can go in a closet, close the lights, shut the doors, scream out, only my mind exists. Only my mind exists. Other minds don't exist. And that's, you're not, you're not being inconsistent there. But once you tell others, somebody else, I came to the conclusion that only my mind exists. Once you make that statement to somebody else, you're contradicting your view. You're living like your view is false because you're communicating it with others. So when I communicate with others, I affirm their existence. Then you could argue that I'm dependent on many things for my continued existence. Others also live like dependent beings. For instance, the denial of dependencies is what Charles Hodge would call forced and temporary. You can deny it in a philosophical lecture hall, but then you come out in the real world and you keep living like you need air. You keep living like you need to eat. Even the denial of the physical world itself is forced and temporary. So some dependent beings now exist, so right there you've got some type of universe. You might not have the guy to agree that the universe is as big as scientists think it is, but at least you've got some kind of universe of dependent beings that needs a cause for its existence. But anyway, getting back to Bonaventure, whatever had a beginning needs a cause. Then he would argue that the universe had a beginning. Now I'll use some more modern argumentation from William Lane Craig. And his argument that the universe could not be eternal would run like this. If the universe is eternal, it would mean an actual infinite set of finite events. Now, I used to argue, up until like real recently, that an actual infinite set of finites is impossible. That's what Craig argues in his book. J.P. Morland is even worse. He even says at one time in his book, an actual infinite is impossible. He doesn't even bother to say an actual infinite set. Now, he says it later and makes himself more clear. I never liked that phrase, because God is an actual infinite. God is an actual infinite. But what Moreland means is what Craig means, an actual infinite set of finances. But the fact is, I heard Craig, even in San Francisco, admit to what I hold to, and that's if God only has a limited amount of knowledge, the day will come in heaven when we'll be as smart as God is. We'll know as much as God knows. So obviously God as an omniscient being, an all-knowing being has an infinite amount of knowledge. But that means that an actual infinite set of finite things exist in the mind of God. Now exist in one thought. He grasped them in one thought. So the argument should not be that an actual infinite set of finites is impossible. Rather the argument should be that it is impossible to traverse an actual infinite set of finites. See what I'm getting at? In other words, it's impossible for us to know everything that God knows, because no matter how much we know, we would never know a fraction of what God knows, because you cannot break down an actual infinite. You cannot reach it, you cannot traverse it. No matter how many things you've learned, you've still got an infinite number more to learn. So what they should just argue is that an actual infinite set of finites is impossible to traverse. And then therefore, if the universe always existed, you would have an actual infinite set of moments. You couldn't traverse the whole infinite set of moments, so you could not reach the present moment now. Okay? What now? I'm not sure if I followed that. Couldn't it? We're not, by our motion from yesterday to today, we're not trying to say that we're traversing an infinite set. There's a finite number of points of moments, let's say, between yesterday and today and today and tomorrow that we're going to traverse, but we're not going to traverse the infinite set. We're going to die at some point and stop traversing through time. However, if the universe was eternal, Just to reach the moment now, how many moments would have to have been traversed? Yeah, but we are not eternal. Yeah, yeah, but that's... When that creature is placed within the eternal framework, it could move around there, right? Yeah, but that's still, it's totally beside the point. Just to reach the moment now, all of us are reaching the moment now. Right. Okay, now we've passed it, now we're sliding out. But, just to reach the moment now, the universe itself would have to have traversed an actual infinite set just to reach this point and you end up right smack with Zeno's Paradox. You can never traverse it actually. In other words, there could only be a limited number of moments in time. There can't be an unlimited number because then we would never reach the present moment now. No matter how many moments would have been traversed, we still wouldn't have reached down, because we cannot cross an actual infinite. Again, it goes right back to Zeno's paradigms. See what I'm getting at there? Yeah, I get it. We can talk some more after, because you're grasping most of these concepts real well, so I want to make sure you get it. Now, I used to say that an actual infinite set of finites is impossible. A set A, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 100 infinitely, and then a set B with just the odd numbers. It's only half the size, yet they're both infinite. But I think that's just the way an infinite set is, really, because an infinite set, any fraction of it would also have to be infinite. So it's just the fact, all it shows is you can't traverse an actual infinite. because you've got to get halfway first and you can't even do that so he's going right back to Zeno's paradox at the same time an actual infinite set of finite ideas can exist in the mind of God so long as they exist as one thought, one eternal thought as long as he grasps it all at once now when we come on the scene thinking one thought at a time and try to learn everything that God knows we'll never reach there, we'll never even reach a fraction of it But all this gets at is that there had to be a first event. You could also go into science and show from the second law of thermodynamics, the amount of usable energy in the universe is winding down. And therefore, if the universe is winding down, it had to be wound up. It's going to have an end. It had to have a beginning. And there you can also argue that the universe needs a cause. Same with the Big Bang model. The universe is expanding in all different directions. It shows the same phenomenon as an explosion. So if you go backwards in time, the universe is getting more and more dense until you reach what scientists call the point of infinite density. Something can only be finitely dense. If it's infinitely dense in a small and unlimited way, then it means that it's nothing. They also call it a point of dimensionless space. Well, if space doesn't have dimensions, it's no space. And so, scientists just don't want to say that, yeah, there was a time when the universe did not exist. Because then, all of a sudden, you're right back at Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So, whether it's scientifically or philosophically, you can argue that the universe had a beginning. So, getting back to Bonaventure, whatever had a beginning needs a cause. The universe had a beginning. therefore the universe needs a cause and what if we say well what if the cause of the universe had a cause and the cause of that had a cause and the cause of that had a cause and go on and on infinitely well an infinite regress is again impossible it just you go with this infinite regress you end up right smack with the same dilemma that you had before with Zeno's paradox and so the cause of the universe must itself be eternal. And so that's the argument from William Lane Craig. Craig uses Bonaventure's argument, and it's the updated version, you find that in his apologetics book, which has just now been put back into print. By the way, the actual infinite set of finite's being impossible, I said I disagreed with that from Moreland and Craig, that it should just be it's impossible to traverse them, but we should leave open the possibility of the existence of an actual infinite set of finites because that would seem to be all the thoughts, all the ideas that God has, the infinite knowledge that God has. There might possibly be another way to get around it. I don't know. Maybe I should. What I should do is call Craig. You know, it's something I'm still in the process of thinking about. But maybe I should call Craig on it because maybe the emphasis should be more on, maybe it shouldn't even be referred to as an actual infinite set of finites. Maybe all this infinite knowledge should just be one all-seeing, penetrating, infinite thought. Although it is an actual set. An actual infinite set of finites can't exist in a physical universe because the physical universe has a beginning and it's going to have an end. Therefore, there is by definition a finite nature to the physical world. The only thing is though is to find evidence for that if you go to science it's always going to be tentative based on the definition of science. If you look for philosophical reasoning then you've got to go even beyond, you've got to look for a principle that would be violated such as the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite which is exactly what would have to be done if the universe was eternal. But there's two possible ways I could go on there, maybe I should talk to Craig. Well, he's out in Belgium, I just can't see Paul in Belgium. Or no, he's in France now, is Louvain in France? I don't have any. So anyway, I'm going to have to call France. He'll be there. I'm going to call Belgium. But I mean, you just call J.P. J.P. Moreland operator. Yeah. You know, we're waiting. You know, in fact, I'd like to have J.P. Moreland come up for our dinner. Yeah. And but. Maybe I'll talk to him, because maybe we should still argue for the impossibility of an actual infinite set of finites, and then argue that you just can't break down God's thought. It's one, all-seeing, infinite thought. So I don't know it. Because you can use that for a thought that one thought. Yeah, but also as his knowledge though, it would be... Do you think that by God's nature, man's image of God, man has thoughts, God is thoughts. Instead of having individual thoughts, he just has the entire nature of thought embodied. And see, the only... The problem I see though is that still that one thought would seem to entail an actual infinite set of finite things. Well, it may be the human concept of eternity seems to emancipate an actual infinite set of finite moments, but it's not. Yeah, so we'll have to... let me talk with... more on that and maybe we'll see if maybe he could recommend something there and if it is the other one of the dilemma I'll be in better shape because I won't have to amend large portions of my dissertation. Okay, so then what Geisler and Feinberg do after presenting arguments for God's existence, they show the atheistic side. Arguments for atheism. If you have your textbooks there, we're still on that chapter 19. If you turn to page 292, they talk about the argument from evil. Now eventually we'll spend a whole lecture or a whole chapter on the problem of evil, so we don't need to spend too much time on it. But, starting on page 292, he starts giving arguments for atheism. The argument that we could know for certain that God does not exist. These are arguments for atheism. First off, he uses the argument from evil. The argument here is spelled out on page 292, and I'm reading from there. One, if God is all good, he will destroy evil. Two, if God is all powerful, he can destroy evil. Three, but evil is not destroyed, it still exists. Four, hence there is no such God. Now several things can be mentioned here. I'm going to again turn to my notes because I give a little more thorough of an answer than Geisler does here, but basically he's built on this and his other writings, as well as the writings from Aquinas and others who mentioned it. Number one, there's an unnecessary time limit placed on God. Because it is possible that the Bible is correct and that God is in the process of defeating evil. So number one, there's an unnecessary time limit placed on God. God may be in the process of defeating evil. Number two, God may have created the possibility for evil, i.e. human free will, not evil itself. In other words, this is Augustine's explanation. Everything God created is good. Evil exists, but God didn't create it. That's because evil only exists as an abuse of free will and a perversion of the good creation that God created. So evil is a privation. It's a lack of a good that should be there. It's not just an absence. A rock has an absence of sight, but that's not evil. But it is bad, it is evil, it is abnormal for a man who was created to have sight, not to have sight. Okay, it's a privation, a lack of a good that should be there. So God did not create evil, but he created the possibility for evil by giving us human free will. And evil is a privation, it's a perversion against the corruption of God. It's like you create metal cars, you build metal cars.